“Corsairs and the noh?” Candy asked and frowned, considering. “That—that could work. When?”
“I think with the noh, yes,” Fiametta said, still shaken but steadying. “That’s what it sounded like. And in about two weeks.”
“Not good. Not good,” Kisa muttered and dashed to the hidden console. “Did they say anything about the Source?”
“No. I don’t think so.” Kisa glanced back at her friend as the computer unlocked. Fiametta looked stricken. “Squall didn’t have much time. And her transmission cut off mid-sentence. They found her, Kisa. Vance found her.”
This time, Kisa felt a chill from her stomach to the tips of her fingers and toes. She knew Golden Vance’s reputation.
“Sweet stars and divines,” Candy muttered; then she looked at Fiametta. “I’ve run into Squall a number of times. I know this doesn’t help much, but if anyone can handle herself in that mob of cutthroats, Squall can. She’s small but mighty.”
“I know,” Fiametta said, her voice shrinking. “I know. But it’s Vance. And he—He knows how to deal with the Doctrine.”
Kisa shook her head as the computer flashed up the answers to her queries. “I can’t believe they’d hit Ulyxis, even with the noh. I can’t believe even Kate would cut a deal with the noh.”
“I can’t believe the noh made a deal with anyone,” Candy replied, thoughtful. “That’s not their style. Kate may not have had a choice.”
“Well,” Kisa said, studying the numbers. “If we change course now and burn most of our fuel, we can just make it in time.”
Fiametta hissed, and Kisa turned around, her hands raised, but Candy cut her off.
“Listen, drop me at the nearest system. Set me on dirt, and I’ll find an Alliance ship to take me to Ulyxis. I’ll go myself.” Fiametta turned her drawn expression toward Kisa.
Kisa shook her head. “No can do,” she said. She put her hands up to stop Fiametta’s protests. “Listen, I know. Squall’s been your friend for a long time. She risked a lot to get this message out, but she didn’t call for help. Did she?”
Fiametta hesitated and then shook her head slowly.
“No, she didn’t. She risked life and limb to let us know that Ulyxis needs help. To tell us where the Source will be. I don’t have any idea what the Source is, exactly, but Squall has given us a chance to grab it. So that’s what we’re going to do.”
After a long few seconds, Fiametta nodded and then hung her head. “I know,” she said so quietly Kisa almost did not hear. “And I know that the Source has to come first.” Her head came back up and fire literally burned in her eyes. “But Vance will be there, and so will Squall, if she’s alive. One way or the other, he and I are going to have words.”
“That’s my girl,” Kisa said, grinning, and laid in the new course.
Candy appeared beside her, examining the console. “I need to get word out about this on the priority channels.”
Kisa indicated another section of the panel, and Candy bent over it to input the Alliance code words. When she had finished her transmission, she stood back and grabbed a discrete rail while the Lucky Chance transitioned from slip space.
“Ulyxis. Wow,” she muttered as Kisa adjusted the ship’s heading to the new course. “Why, I wonder.”
Fiametta grabbed the same rail and shook her head. She looked better, if not exactly good. “I’m not sure. Squall said something about the noh raiding the surface while the pirates fought in space. Said the noh were after something specific, an artifact she thought.”
“Makes sense,” Candy said, thoughtful. “That plays to their strengths and seems like a solid motivation for the noh. I wonder what it is.”
“I’ve got a sinking suspicion that I know.” Kisa punched the slip drive button. The ship shuddered as it broke through the dimensional barrier. “Let’s just hope we get there before they figure it out.”
Chapter 9
Marianne, slip space
Malya set her fork down and glanced around the long table. The usual crowd of dinner companions made the usual varying quality of conversation, but she ignored most of the voices. Rin continued to look remarkably comfortable in the long dresses that the crew had provided and that she oddly insisted on wearing to dinner. She chatted animatedly—about guns, by the sound of it—with Harker’s first mate Constanza Digby. Mr. Tomn sat on the sideboard with Caesar perched next to him, sharing something that looked like custard. Betty still looked as nervous and withdrawn as ever, surrounded by the Marianne’s officers and senior crew, and kept trying to huddle into Lug. The huge chee looked perfectly at ease, though it had taken a few days to get there. He traded jokes with several of the engineering crewmen, displaying an easy grace Malya had never seen in him.
Only Harker himself seemed different, now that she thought about it. The princess regarded the pirate, seated opposite her at the far end of the table. He glanced up from his plate when he felt her gaze and returned her look silently. She had also chosen to wear a dress tonight, though she could not have said why when she picked it out. Now, rather than feeling self-conscious, she remembered all those agonizing family and formal dinners growing up, and drew confidence from knowing just what image she presented and how to best use it.
“Captain Harker,” she said, projecting so that her voice cut through every other conversation. She paused for three breaths as all other voices stilled. “You have been exceptionally generous and accommodating. Do not for a moment believe that we don’t appreciate everything you’ve done. But we have been in slip space for six days, and we have not yet received the explanations you promised us on the Tranquil Wind. I think that we are due at least some of them now.” She noted that several of the crew members looked a little concerned, though she could not tell whether this related to the nature of her question or the way she asked it.
Harker regarded her for a heartbeat or two, set down his wine, cleared his throat, and stood. “You are perfectly right, of course, your highness. I apologize for what must seem a selfish delay. It might be some excuse to say that matters have proceeded far more quickly than I had anticipated, and this has occupied my attention, especially given the difficulty of communications in slip space.” He gestured to the party. “But tonight is a surprisingly appropriate time to discuss this. And since we seem to have reached that point in the evening in any event, I’ll ask the companions of the princess to follow me. Mr. Digby, you have the ship.”
The statuesque brunette stood to attention, somehow managing to make her floor-length, asymmetric dinner dress seem military. She nodded and snapped a few quick commands. The officers and crew around the table acknowledged and trotted off.
“Moffet,” Harker said, “if you would care to join us, I would be most grateful.”
The duelist smiled up at him from her seat beside his. “It’s nothing I don’t know,” she said with the aloof sadness that characterized most of her conversation. “But I suppose you’ll want me to embellish some of it, won’t you?”
“Illuminate, my friend,” Harker said with a wry smile. “I’ve never needed help embellishing.”
Moffet actually laughed, a clear and rich sound that Malya knew for a certain fact that she had never heard before. “Too true, Captain.” She stood and gestured toward the room’s rear door. “Lead on.”
Crewmen appeared as the group strolled out, already clearing the table, and Malya marveled again at their efficiency. She knew that the space would be a briefing and chart room again within minutes. The sight of the next room, however, drove away such distractions. Malya had never been in this room before. The ceiling became barrel-vaulted, rose by several feet, and the walls stretched back to the proportions of a fine house instead of a corsair starship. Antique lamps in an oddly alien style hung high on the walls and spread warm light across the thick wooden floor planks. Armored glass windows two decks tall marched down the length of the hull on her left to display the smearing, shifting colors of slip space. The far end of the room lay in th
ick shadow, and Malya noticed Mr. Tomn peering intently into the darkness.
All of the Cerci crew marveled as they milled around at the front of the cabin. His cabin, Malya realized. She inspected the heavy desk, its surface a mixture of organized piles and scattered papers or datapads. She noted the simple but deep bunk built into the wall near the door; through a trick of the architecture, it both lay out of the way and had a clear view of the room and the windows. She felt suddenly intrusive, as if she had invaded the captain’s private space rather than been invited.
Harker, of course, displayed no discomfort. He spread his hands to indicate the room. “Welcome, all. The Marianne, as you’ve no doubt guessed, was not built in this galaxy, and though I’ve modified her rather extensively, I did keep a number of the more distinctive sections intact. And now, to business.”
He turned and waved his hand. A baroque apparatus of what looked like brass globes and gold rings and blunt arms wrought in a strange wood descended from the ceiling. It whirred and chuckled and several of the globes began to spin. A strikingly crisp holoprojection of the Last Galaxy appeared around them, thought the color balance seemed just subtly off. Malya found herself squinting at it slightly.
“This, as I’m sure you recognize, is all that remains of the universe.” Harker pointed, and a spot in the middle circumferences of one spiral arm glowed. “That is Ulyxis, the last forum world of the United Planetary Alliance, just for reference.” He pointed to a small, blinking speck moving slowly across the arm on a course that would bring it quite close to the forum world. “And we are approximately here.”
The pirate captain waved them toward the comfortable furniture scattered around the softly lit space. “A little background first. I’ve traveled extensively, far more than most beings now living. I have sailed the stars for decades, and I’ve spent a great deal of that time in other galaxies chasing, fighting, and studying the Calamity.” The comm on his forearm beeped and he touched a button there. “In that time, I’ve accumulated a great deal of information. But that’s proven of singularly little help.”
“So what makes you think this time is any different?” Malya asked. She perched on the arm of a tall chair and crossed her arms.
“This time, I finally have the pieces I need,” Harker said. “Allow me to explain.” He paused as the cabin’s door chime rang, and he pressed a button on his chair. The portal slid open, and the monstrous noh strode in.
Lug stood a little straighter and stepped slightly in front of Betty. “As long as you’re explaining things,” Lug rumbled, “let’s start with him.”
The noh raised one eyebrow at the chee and then bowed.
“I’ve asked Kenobo to join us because of his unique insight into his people and their role in this tragedy,” Harker said, his tone firm. “We’ve sailed together for,” he hesitated and glanced at Kenobo. “I honestly don’t know how many cycles it’s been.”
The monk shrugged and replied in a surprisingly soft voice. “Nor I, Captain. I’ve lost count.” He had a strange accent, sharp on the hard consonants, that made Malya’s jaw tighten slightly. He turned to regard the group. “You have nothing to fear from me, though I doubt you believe that. Most don’t.”
“The noh illustrate an uncomfortable fact about the Calamity. Consider how long their dragon fleets have plagued us,” Harker said. “We have records of noh raids that go back over ten thousand cycles, nearly to the founding of the Alliance, and I’ve seen descriptions of their attacks that are older still. But what do we really know about them? We mostly know them as reavers, slayers, and slavers. We know they are divided into separate dragon fleets of different names. Some even know that they worship a hydra god. But how many, do you suppose, know that his name is Nozuki? How many know that each of the dragon fleets bears the name of one of his heads, and that each represents an aspect of his personality or psyche?” He gestured to the huge monk. “Dragon Fleet To is the best known, for they represent Nozuki’s bravery, making them among his vanguard. We’ve fought them for millennia, but we know almost nothing about how they live, what they believe, or what they want. So it is with the Calamity.”
“Sometimes knowing that they’re pouring out of rifts to kill you is enough,” Malya said flatly.
“When you find yourself staring at the business end of one of their blades, certainly,” Moffet replied laconically. “But has that limited understanding helped us to defeat them? Has it stopped the raids, or even slowed them down?” She looked at the princess’s withering stare without flinching. “No. They’re an opponent like any other, however, and studying them is the key to defeating them.”
Malya shrugged, conceding the point. “So which fleet is he exiled from?”
“I am not exiled from my fleet,” Kenobo replied, solemnly but without rebuke. “My fleet is exiled from my people.”
“You’re—Wait, what?”
Kenobo actually chuckled, though he seemed surprised and quickly schooled his features. “Yes. As Captain Harker has said, our hydra god’s different heads embody different parts of him, and our separate dragon fleets are each dedicated to one of these aspects. My fleet is Go, named for Gomandi, the head of wisdom.” He bowed from the shoulders.
“Not a trait I think of when I think of the noh,” Rin said with a chill in her voice that nearly made Malya shiver.
“Indeed,” Kenobo said. He seemed unfazed by her tone. “There’s good reason for that. Ages ago, Nozuki offered my people a chance to reave, slave, and slay across the universe in his name, and he would exalt us above all others. We accepted, and he remade us into this form. Down to our cells, we are his creatures, but we retain our intelligence and,” he paused, “curiosity. Even as we stripped our world to build the dragon fleets, questions were asked that had only uncomfortable answers. We set off on our holy mission with some of us already uneasy in our minds. After millennia of faithful service, too many of us had reservations that could no longer be ignored.”
He sighed, and his eyes unfocused. He hesitated, twice, clearly biting off words at the last second. “Rather than answer those questions, our god chose to attack. In his own realm, Nozuki’s eight other heads ripped Gomandi from its neck and burned the stump with hellfire. The fleets drove us out, killing many. Most of the monks of my order served as advisors and spiritual guides among the other fleets. Less than a dozen of us escaped.”
His gaze returned slowly to Rin, who had gone pale. “Ever since, we have wandered the galaxies seeking the truth behind Nozuki’s words. For not all he told us was false. Not all his promises were lies.”
He spoke a word in a language none of them knew, and the hologram whirled. Red starbursts began to appear, first along the fringes of the galaxy and then slowly deeper, like fingers of bloody frost spreading over a window.
“He told us, for instance, that the rift generators that move our warriors and ships between dimensions would aid us in our task. Beyond their obvious use, however, it is clear now that they weaken something in the fabric of this universe. When we come to a galaxy, noh raids follow predictable patterns, outside to in, and along certain routes scouted and mapped by the Sarva, our scouts. My fleet first determined the signs that they follow, however, though we knew not what they meant.”
“But you do now?” Malya asked, her throat dry.
“In a way,” Kenobo said. His huge clawed hand traced one of the loose lines of starbursts. “We do not know what trail these routes follow, but we do know that the flows of esper in a galaxy change markedly behind them. The dragon fleets alter a galaxy’s esper, and the crystals grow thick in their wake.”
Betty frowned at the pattern of starbursts. “They look like they point somewhere, don’t they?”
“I also thought so, at first,” Harker said, leaning forward, “but I have realized that, rather, they point from somewhere. In every case I can find, the noh raids herald the beginning of the end. Though it may take centuries or longer for a galaxy to die, the noh are the first sign. And they are
not alone. As best I can find, the Calamity—for lack of a better way to personify the problem—enters a galaxy at a point somewhere along its edge. Somewhere the noh raids passed early on, where the crystals have grown thickest.”
“You believe you’ve found that point here,” Malya said.
Harker nodded.
“And you believe you can get there and stop it?”
He nodded again.
She shrugged, ignoring the sinking feeling in her stomach and Mr. Tomn’s intense gaze on her. “They why do you need me?”
Harker raised one eyebrow. “You can’t be serious. Do you really have to ask?”
“Yes I do,” she said, heat rising to her face. She jabbed her finger at Mr. Tomn. “Because if you say it’s about him, we’re leaving.” She gritted her teeth. “Because if it is, then what you need is a Knight, any Knight. Not. Me,” she hissed.
Harker’s eyes slowly narrowed and his jaw set. From the corner of her eye, Malya noticed Moffet’s surprise at his expression and saw her take a step back.
“Crown Princess,” the captain said, “grow up.” He stood slowly, as Malya blinked in surprise, and his voice rose with him. “I have seen the Calamity eat the universe, eradicate uncountable trillions of lives, and nothing anyone has tried can even slow it down.” He got at least some of his control back as he inhaled, and he ceased shouting. “I have personally witnessed the end of three separate galaxies, and each of them went down swinging. It made no damn difference.” He pointed to Caesar and Mr. Tomn. “Of course it’s about them. We, and only we, are the people in what remains of the universe who have even a prayer of succeeding. Just because you don’t want the responsibility that comes with a cypher doesn’t mean you can escape it.
“And no, it can’t be just any Knight.” His tone had turned sarcastic but that vanished almost instantly, and for the first time, Malya could hear and see just how drained Harker was. Decades of vain struggles, of living on hope alone, had sapped nearly all the strength from him, but even here, at the very last, he refused to collapse or give up. She could not even guess what the effort must cost him.
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